Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
I lean into her and mold her close, my cheek finding her cheek, my lips at her ear. “I want you, Emma Knight, and I don’t want you to remember anyone else’s hands or mouth on your body. I don’t want you to remember anyone else inside you. And no one ties you up but me.” I pull back and look at her. “And if I do, when I do, you will not feel fear. You’ll only feel pleasure.”
“I know that,” she whispers. “Last night was—”
“Not the right time, baby.” I press my fingers between her legs, stroking the wet heat there. “But that time will come.” She moans, and I press a finger inside her, followed by another, when it’s me I want inside her. I’m hot and hard, and she’s so damn perfect, but I tried to take too much, too fast. Now I need to show her this isn’t about me. It’s about her and us.
“Jax,” she gasps with the pump of my fingers. I can feel her letting go, giving herself to me and the moment, which is what I want. It’s what we both need, but what she doesn’t need is to feel like I’m coddling her. And I’m not. I don’t want a broken version of Emma. I want to be the man who heals her, who makes her free and whole again. So, I don’t coddle her. I don’t hold back, not wholly. I catch her hair in my hands and drag her mouth to mine, my lips a breath from her lips.
“Whoever did what they did to you, Emma, and I think we both know who that was, he doesn’t own you. You do. And I do, when you let me.” I slide my fingers out of her and cup her backside, pressing my cock inside her, driving deep and angling her into my thrust. She’s so damn hot and tight that I groan with the effort it takes to slow down, before I drive into her again and forget why slow is good, why it’s necessary and right. But I do it. I roll back the need to push into her again, nestling deep inside her.
She pants and arches against me, wanting what I want now, but I decide to give her what we both wanted early. I squeeze her backside and press my forehead to hers. “You know what I’m going to do right now, don’t you?”
“Do it,” she orders, grabbing my hair again and tugging. “Do it, Jax.”
I nip her bottom lip and then lick into her mouth, and when she’s all in, when she’s kissing the hell out of me, I thrust into her at the same time I lift my hand and smack her backside. Not hard. Just enough for her to feel it. She gasps and gives my hair another rough tug, pressing into me.
“Again,” she demands, urgency radiating off of her, her sex clenching my cock.
I don’t deny her. I lift my hand and smack her backside again, this time, a little harder. On impact, she gasps again and lifts her hips into my hard thrust. She laughs and smiles. “I—I—” She presses her lips to mine, and I don’t know what she was thinking or feeling, but holy hell, she feels so damn good.
Too good to hold back another minute.
I claim her mouth, I claim her, and kiss the hell out of her, giving her one last smack and thrust before I roll her to her back and cover her body with mine. “Holy hell, woman,” I murmur, brushing my lips over hers. “What are you doing to me?”
“What are you doing to me?”
Keeping her. Making her mine. I’m going to make this woman mine, but I don’t make that declaration out loud. Not now. Not when I haven’t even gotten her to agree to move in with me. Instead, I kiss her and touch her. I move inside her, and she moves with me. I lose everything around me. I lose everything in the world but this woman. There is no beginning or end without Emma. I don’t know how that happened, but I don’t care. I don’t want there to be an end. No one is going to force us into an end, and with that, a bit of the world tries to return. I remember her on that landing last night. I remember my brother’s funeral. I remember all the forces that want to divide us and destroy us.
I force them away before she feels them, too. I bring us back to just us. I kiss her and fuck her, ravenous for her, and she’s right there with me. Just as hungry. Just as desperate. The world fades again, and I’m lost in her moans, in her touch, in the way she smells and tastes. Flowers and sugar. She smells like flowers in a storm and tastes like sugar, sweet, where there has been nothing but bitterness. So damn much bitterness.